Nutritional Status of Tribal Women in Bihar

Abstract

Undernourished women tend to deliver low birth weight babies (Karmer, 1987) and to have pregnancy complications (Baird, 1947). Perinatal mortality and prematurity rates were found to be high among short statured women (Barros, 1987). It is known that both weight before and during pregnancy can have a direct bearing on the birth weight of the offspring (Simpson, 1975). It is known that both weight before and during pregnancy can have a direct bearing on the birth weight of the offspring (Simpson, 1975). Women among less privileged communities in India are malnourished (Samuel and Rao, 1992) and their dietary energy intake is not adequate to compensate their heavy physical work load (Chatterjee and Lambert, 1990). Women in developing countries were found to be short and thin. In these countries women were found to weigh below the 55 kg norm used by WHO.